


Wither

by aurumstar (shieldivarius)



Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: (if that's not a tag yet it should be), Aether Play, Angst, Break Up, F/M, Female Azem, Oral Sex, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Prompt Fill, Reverse soul mates??, Tragic Romance, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020, sad sex, two smart people making bad relationship choices (the sex not the break up)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26487283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/aurumstar
Summary: She pressed three fingers to his lips. “Hush. You agreed. No fighting for one night.”He bristled, but sorrow drew her features wan and her eyes had the glassy beginnings of tears. No fighting. He’d made that promise to her when he’d agreed to this, but a not-insignificant part of him revolted against it. Refused to accept the reality of just what he’d acquiesced to.But Azem had always been a free spirit, and whether or not he agreed with her on the politics of the day, she was right about one thing: if they continued clashing as they had been, they were only going to feed into the very chaos that had them at odds.It's the end of days, and they're on different sides.Fill for the FFXIV write 2020 prompt "part".
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch
Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916263
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: #FFxivWrite Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge - Complete Works





	Wither

“This is, perhaps, the cruelest of endings you could have concocted for us.”

Emet-Selch traced his hands down her sides, feathered fingertips across her hips. Bent and pressed a kiss to the soft skin of the inside of her knee. He glanced up at her, looked up the long line of her body, and as his gaze would’ve met hers, she looked away. 

“This is necessary,” Azem whispered. Her breath trembled, her words with it, but she held out her hands to draw him upward. He went, covered her body with his and claimed her lips. Her aether, her very _soul_ , trembled, bringing his with it for the slightest of instances before he brought it back under control. And therein lay the problem. 

“I have suggested half a dozen alternatives, if you would—”

She pressed three fingers to his lips. “Hush. You agreed. No fighting for one night.” 

He bristled, but sorrow drew her features wan and her eyes had the glassy beginnings of tears. No _fighting_. He’d made that promise to her when he’d agreed to this, but a not-insignificant part of him revolted against it. Refused to accept the reality of just what he’d acquiesced to.

But Azem had always been a free spirit, and whether or not he agreed with her on the politics of the day, she was right about one thing: if they continued clashing as they had been, they were only going to feed into the very chaos that had them at odds.

So, relenting, he kissed the fingers on his lips, dragged his tongue up the middle one and brought them into his mouth. Her skin tasted of power, sweet and pungent with a spark like levin on his tongue. He touched that power, sucked on her fingers and drank it down through her fingertips.

Her eyelashes fluttered, eyes closed and she gasped. Her return tug on his aether jolted through him, sent heat rushing between his legs. He brushed his hand over her collarbone, down to one heavy breast, teasing the hard nub there and making her jump. Aether swirled around his hand, reached out to her and she tugged on his offering, pulled it in and absorbed it, swallowing her magic with his. Then fed him back in kind. 

The warm rush of power through him made him limp and weak, the emotion caught up in it warm and familiar and _home_. Her aether was a sun that he sought out automatically, that his every cell was programmed to be drawn toward. He shook and released her fingers from his mouth and locked his arms to keep from collapsing down on top of her. His mind screamed at him again, rebelled against agreeing to _let her go_.

Unaware of his internal struggle, she laughed, and her eyes were open again and shining with amusement now, rather than sorrow.

“I fear we’ve chosen the wrong way of going about this.”

He grunted, dipped to capture her lips again. Pushed back their end goal even if it was hanging over his head, because she clearly wasn’t there yet. He wouldn’t rush her. He’d enjoy these last moments while she gave them to him. “Your plan, darling.”

She sighed, offered him up a lazy smile. “I’m being selfish.” She tangled her hands in his hair, lightly scraped her fingernails against his scalp, and he became somehow more limp in her arms than even the aether play had left him.

“I am not complaining,” he said. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, “That would be too close to instigating a fight, I believe.”

He deserved the flat look he received in response. But she sat up enough to kiss the hollow of his throat, then slid slowly down the bed, pressing kisses down his chest as she went. He lifted enough to give her room to move. Every press of her lips felt hotter than the one before it as she descended.

And when she took him in her mouth, she pulled on his aether again at the same time, and he shuddered and nearly came right there.

He fisted his hands in the bedsheets, held himself still and let his mind go blank but for the feel of her lips around him, the heat of her mouth, the slide of her tongue around his head. Let himself forget everything but her body next to him, her magic entangled in his, their souls knit together like countermelodies.

And when his legs started to shake, he nudged her back up and pushed inside of her, pressed their bodies together to match as closely as their aether. She came with a cry, her soul aglow, and their magic pressed outward, pushed against his warding and threatened to escape the confines of the apartment when he followed.

He fell beside her as she gazed upward, expression languid and contemplative. He could dimly feel her testing the wards with a touch. 

“Interesting,” she murmured.

He shook his head, lazily trailed his fingers through the long strands of silver spread across the pillow. “And never shall we know if we can break them.”

She glanced at him, looking surprised, as though she’d never expected him to be the one to prompt the reminder. Uncoupling. That was why they were here. The goodbye was only because they, neither of them, was smart enough to leave well enough alone.

“I suppose we should…” she trailed off and sighed, the sound pained and breathy. “Hades, if you would only—”

His turn to cut her off with fingers against her lips. “No fighting.”

She nodded, but a tear dripped down her cheek. “You’re right, of course.” She brushed the tear away, sat up and closed her eyes.

Creation came as easily as breathing, but destruction was a different matter altogether. In her travels, and the career she’d made of solving others’ mistakes, Azem had become something of an expert of it. So when she reached out, it was easy to slip his hands into hers and let her take the lead.

If they’d been married, it would’ve been an old-fashioned, ceremonial divorce proceeding. Actual, formal aether melding was increasingly rare and that they’d done it accidentally, as idiotic youths, had been a running joke amongst those in the know and felt like their burning, secret shame had been exposed when anyone not in their circle found out. 

But because he wanted nothing to do with separating from her, wanted nothing to do with her leaving, wished that she’d _see it their way_ and join in the rest of the Convocation, he let her take the lead.

He closed his eyes as their aether spiralled out, and he could see Azem carefully separating the strands of hers from where they’d coiled around his. He set about doing the same, unknitting threads, trying not to collapse under the burden of the memories that came alight with each strand of aether he touched.

And at the end of it, when she tugged her hands from his, pushed back and created physical distance between them to parallel the aetheric cutting of ties, they were both crying. 

“There was another way,” he said.

She shook her head, wordless. Her feet touched the floor and as she stood the remaining aether threads stretching between them snapped. He flinched.

“I will fight with you about it tomorrow, Emet-Selch,” she said. “For tonight, let me mourn what could have been.”

She looked back at him, held his gaze with hers. He nodded, because there was no other response he could give. The deed had been done. To invite her to stay, to even touch her now, could start to mend what they’d reversed. And he didn’t want to put either of them through this again.

With a trembling, wet-eyed smile, Azem turned and left, the pads of her feet almost silent on the floor. Silent as the sun, setting behind the horizon, taking its warmth with it. 

And deep within him, something mourned the loss of its sun, and withered.

**Author's Note:**

> Hooboy, it's been a long time since I wrote anything approaching smut and this is some real romantic drivel, but here we are.
> 
> part: to go or come apart; separate, as two or more things


End file.
